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Chapter 1 · The gentleman of La Mancha
Gustave Doré, the gentleman, his nag, his greyhound and his armor (1863) · public domain
1.1.1
Don Quixote 1.1.1 · A village in La Mancha1.1.1A village in La Mancha
The first sentence of the novel. A narrator who will not name the village introduces a country gentleman by the things he owns.
· · ·
En1
en
In
un2
un
a
lugar3
lu·GAR
villageplace
de4
de
of
la5
la
La
Mancha6
MAN·cha
Manchastain
, de7
de
of
cuyo8
CU·yo
whichwhose
nombre9
NOM·bre
the name
no10
no
not
quiero11
QUIE·ro
want
acordarme12
a·cor·DAR·me
to recallto remind myself
, no13
no
not
ha14
ha
it has been
mucho15
MU·cho
longmuch
tiempo16
TIEM·po
time
que17
que
that
vivía18
vi·VÍ·a
livedwas living
un19
un
a
hidalgo20
hi·DAL·go
gentlemanson of somebody
de21
de
(one) of
los22
los
those
de23
de
with
lanza24
LAN·za
a lance
en25
en
in
astillero26
as·ti·LLE·ro
the rack
, adarga27
a·DAR·ga
a shieldleather shield
antigua28
an·TI·gua
old
, rocín29
ro·CÍN
a nagworkhorse
flaco30
FLA·co
skinnylean
y31
y
and
galgo32
GAL·go
a greyhound
corredor33
co·rre·DOR
fastrunning
. In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I do not want to recall, not long ago there lived a gentleman, one of those with a lance in the rack, an old shield, a skinny nag and a fast greyhound.
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I do not want to recall, not long ago there lived a gentleman, one of those with a lance in the rack, an old shield, a skinny nag and a fast greyhound.
Interpretation
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I do not care to remember, there lived not long ago one of those gentlemen who keep a lance in the rack, an old leather shield, a skinny nag and a greyhound for the chase.
The most famous sentence in Spanish starts with a refusal. The narrator knows the village and won’t say it. At the very end of the second part (1615), Cervantes gives his reason: he left the place unnamed so that every town in La Mancha could fight over the knight, as seven cities of Greece fought over Homer. The opening words, En un lugar de la Mancha, also scan as an eight-syllable line, the measure of the old Spanish ballads.
Then the man is drawn by his things, and the things are old. A hidalgo is the lowest rank of nobility, from fijo d’algo, “son of something”: a gentleman by birth, not by money. The lance on its rack and the leather shield (adarga, a word Spanish took from Arabic) were already out of date in 1605. The nag and the greyhound tell you he hunts on the cheap. Rodríguez Marín, in his 1911 edition, quotes a Castilian proverb about the rocín: “to the man you wish ill, may you see him with a nag; to the man you wish worse, with two.”
1.1.2
Don Quixote 1.1.2 · What he ate in a week1.1.2What he ate in a week
The narrator goes on drawing the gentleman by his things. Now it is his food, day by day through the week.
· · ·
A stew of rather more beef than mutton, cold chopped meat most nights, eggs and bacon on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, a squab as an extra on Sundays, used up three quarters of his income.